Kay Mahapa’s Quest For Internet Domination
The internet’s Eazy Matjila
In his YouTube intro, Karabo ‘Kay’ Mahapa calls himself the modern day Eazy Matjila. Mahapa’s invocation of the spirit of Matjila as he welcomes viewers to his videos is not just to have a catchy intro or to fill time but it is a window into his quest for internet domination.
To understand the significance of Mahapa’s invocation of Matjila, it is important to understand who Matjila is and his significance to Basotho people.
Sepedi, Sesotho and Setswana are collectively known as Basotho languages much like Isizulu, IsiXhosa, IsiNdebele and SiSwati are Nguni languages. The SABC which is the national broadcaster in South Africa, offers news bulletins in all 9 official languages. Matjila was a Setswana news anchor at the SABC for many decades.
Anyone who grew up in the 90s and 2000s knows how obsessed black elders were with watching the news. During those times very few black households had DSTV so the only source of news in a language of choice was the SABC. The obsession black elders had with news plus the accessibility of current affairs in your own language meant there was a specific news anchor that was always on your family tv at a specific time.
News were usually watched in the evenings as the parents were back from work and the kids back from playing in the streets. Watching the news (at much boredom to the kids) became ritual for many black households and the news anchors became part of that ritual and often felt like part of the home itself.
By the 2000s, vernacular news anchors were extremely popular is small pockets of the country. Eazy Matjila who would be know by many Basotho speaking people was a nobody to Isizulu speakers and Noxolo Grootboom who was a celebrity to Nguni speaks was unknown by many Xitsonga speakers.
Eazy Matjila was one such news anchor who had been in front of the camera at the SABC for so long that he practically became part of the furniture in many homes who regularly watched Setswana news. Though not technically ‘entertainers’, news anchors in the SABC became celebrities in their own rights as they were an authority figure for credible information in many homes.
Mahapa, who was born in 1998 and grew up in a black South African home in the 2000s would have been exposed to the likes of Eazy Matjila and would have seen that it’s possible for someone to affect people’s lives and be ingrained in their households through a tv screen.
Though not a tv screen — Mahapa is setting out to do exactly this through the power of the internet.
Starting out on Twitter, Mahapa has been able to amass a following of 62 500 people on that platform. By today’s standards that might not seem like a lot but it is important to note that this is organic growth. By that I mean he has not been on any traditional media platform where he would’ve gotten exposure, he did not move followers from another platform (e.g. getting YouTube subscribers to follow you on twitter) or use the ‘follow- for- follow’ method.
The growth in Mahapa’s account has been purely from his sheer genius humor. Also expanding on that humor point — there are very few ‘funny accounts’ on Twitter specifically who do not heavily rely on ‘problematic’ jokes. To be clear, by problematic I mean jokes that are clearly steeped in homophobia, transphobia and sexism. For as long as I have paid attention to Mahapa’s Twitter account, his style of humor has not relied on bigotry.
It is commendable that Mahapa has built a following off of jokes that do not involve any of the -isms and does not involve mimicking black women during a time when it seems no one can be funny without imitating black women.
With the growth of his Twitter following, Mahapa has also focused his attention to YouTube and TikTok.
In 2021 Mahapa started his YouTube channel which now sits on 3 610 subscribers. This is good growth for someone who doesn’t make viral content (e,g smash or pass, calling my ex, etc.) and has only been active on the channel for 4 months. The vlogs and weekly round up videos which are currently the main content on the channel have done really well for a new channel.
Moving to TikTok — standing at 43 800 followers and 740 900 likes and multiple viral vides (over 100k views) Mahapa is making a name for himself on arguably the fastest growing social media platform in the world.
Looking at the current social media landscape, the three platforms that one simply has to be on for maximum exposure are YouTube, Twitter and TikTok. There are a significant number of people who enjoy long form video content on the internet and YouTube continues to dominate that space. Twitter remains the central platform for information sharing and is the dominant non-video orientated social media platform. As mentioned above, TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform and Instagram’s nervous breakdown is a clear indicator that anyone who prioritizes TikTok over Instagram is on the right path.
As Mahapa continues to grow on Twitter, YouTube and TikTok he places himself at the prime position that will allow him to infiltrate people’s screens across social media platform. With the platforms Mahapa is currently prioritizing, he wants to make sure that anyone with social media access stands a chance of coming across his content. Knowing that there are already people who love his content, Mahapa is aware that if he focuses on these platforms he increases his likelihood of ending up as the modern day Eazy Matjila — a household name for people who enjoy his style of comedy.
Much like there are many people in South Africa who have never heard of Eazy Matjila, Mahapa is not interested in mass appeal. He simply wants to capture a portion of the internet population that understands his humor and will give him enough exposure sustain a life as a content creator
